UCSD Faculty

Grace M. Kuo, Pharm.D., M.P.H (Principal Investigator, Program Director)
http://pharmacy.ucsd.edu/faculty/Kuo.shtml
is an Associate Professor of Clinical Pharmacy and Associate Adjunct Professor of Family and Preventive Medicine. She is the Director of San Diego Pharmacist Resource and Research Network, and the Director for the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Practice-Based Research Network. Dr. Kuo has over 10 years of clinical experience working at different healthcare settings (hospital, primary care clinic, home care and community pharmacy, and consulting). She is currently an AHRQ-funded career development award recipient and a health services researcher, with ongoing projects titled "Safe Use of Medications in Primary Care Practices". She has conducted several medication safety research studies funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the National Institutes of Health. She has also collaborated with primary care physicians from the American Academy of Family Physicians and consortium of practice-based research networks on national studies related to medication error reports. She is responsible for the overall management of the program and oversees the development, dissemination, and evaluation of the education program.

Kelly Lee, Pharm.D., BCPP (Co-Investigator, Program Associate)
http://pharmacy.ucsd.edu/faculty/lee.shtml
is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacy. Dr. Lee is board certified in psychiatric pharmacy ; she manages a Depression Management Primary Care Clinic. She has experience teaching psychiatric and neurologic disorders to psychiatry residents, medical students, pharmacy students and nurses. Dr. Lee has extensive experience in planning CE programs for pharmacists . She has served as the Meeting Program Associate for ASHP and has coordinated educational symposia at the Midyear Clinical Meetings (attendance of over 20,000 pharmacists). She has served on the program committee for the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists and is currently the Chair of the 2009 Program Committee. As Chair, she leads a group of 12 committee members to organize and recruit key thought leaders in psychiatry and neurology for the four-day national meeting. Dr. Lee is currently collaborating with Dr. John R. Kelsoe to investigate genetic variants that are responsible for valproic acid response in patients with bipolar disorder. Dr. Lee will be involved in all aspects of the educational campaign including curriculum development, dissemination efforts, and program evaluation. She will serve as a presenter for specific components of the education program to pharmacists, physicians, and students.

Joseph D. Ma, Pharm.D. (Co-Investigator, Program Associate)
http://pharmacy.ucsd.edu/faculty/Ma.shtml
is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacy. He shares a dual appointment with the Moores UCSD Cancer Center. Dr. Ma has evaluated the influence of genetic factors, specifically the pharmacogenetics of the cytochrome p-450 enzymes, on inter- and intraindividual pharmacokinetic variability of drugs. Dr. Ma has served as co-coordinator for a Therapeutics course, which integrates knowledge of anatomy , physiology, pathophysiology, pharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacology in learning how to make appropriate therapeutic decisions. At the Moores Cancer Center - Clinical Trials Office, Dr. Ma examines confounding factors, such as age, disease status, drug-metabolizing enzyme function, and a patient's genotype in accounting for a patient's response to chemotherapy agents. Dr. Ma will be involved in all aspects of the educational campaign including curriculum development, dissemination, and program evaluation. He will serve as a presenter for the education program to pharmacists, physicians, and students.

Philip E. Bourne, Ph.D. (Co-Investigator, SciVee™ Co-Founder)
http://pharmacy.ucsd.edu/faculty/bourne.shtml
is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Co-director of the Protein Data Bank and an Adjunct Professor at the Burnham Institute and the Keck Graduate Institute. He serves on the advisory board of PharmGKB and is an elected fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association. He is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal PLoS Computational Biology, and a long standing member of the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health panels. Dr. Bourne's interests focus on bioinformatics and structural bioinformatics. He has published over 200 papers and 4 books, one of which sold over 120,000 copies. He has co-founded 4 companies, including SciVee. Dr. Bourne is committed to improving better integration and dissemination of data and results. Dr. Bourne will assist in online hosting of the education program, video production, and information technology (IT) platform configurations.

Theodore Ganiats, M.D. (Co-Investigator, Physician Liaison)
http://hsrcreports.ucsd.edu/ExpertSearch/ViewExpert.aspx?IDExpert=1
is Professor and interim chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine and the Executive Director of the UCSD Health Services Research Center. Dr. Ganiats' work on cost-effectiveness analysis includes prospective data as well as data from literature reviews. Due to his interest in clinical policy and evidence-based medicine, Dr. Ganiats has participated as a member or chair on over 30 national guideline panels and quality improvement initiatives spanning multiple disciplines. In addition, he is a member of the California Health Benefit Review Program, where the University of California creates rapid turn-around assessments of health benefit mandate bills for the California legislature. Dr. Ganiats will help disseminate the education program to primary care physicians and students. He will evaluate the content of the module-based education program as it relates to the clinical application of pharmacogenomics.

James Halpert, Ph.D. (Co-Investigator, Content Expert)
http://pharmacy.ucsd.edu/faculty/Halpert.shtml
is Professor and Associate Dean for Scientific Affairs. He was a member of the NIH Pharmacology Study Section and served as the Chairman for 2 years. He was Editor for Drug Metabolism and Disposition from 2000-2005. He has authored 160 peer-reviewed publications, is the prior recipient of an NIH Career Development Award, and currently holds a MERIT Award. Dr. Halpert's research focuses on the structure and function of CYP2B and 3A subfamilies. Dr. Halpert's work on the CYP3A subfamily has focused on determining the basis of species and individual differences in drug metabolism. His role will involve the curriculum development of the education program with an emphasis on CYP pharmacogenomics. He will critique the content of the module-based educational program as it relates to CYP pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics.

Palmer Taylor, Ph.D. (Co-Investigator, Content Expert and Institutional Support)
http://pharmacy.ucsd.edu/faculty/taylor.shtml
is the founding Dean of SSPPS, Sandra and Monroe Trout Professor of Pharmacology, and Associate Vice Chancellor of Health Sciences. Dr. Taylor's group cloned the first acetylcholinesterase (AChE) gene, and this was followed by analysis of its genomic DNA to delineate regulatory regions, the multiple splicing options and gene expression profiles in nerve and muscle. His research team has examined SNP's and INDEL's in target proteins in the cholinergic nervous system and related them to autonomic nervous system phenotypes. As a pharmacologist engaged in the training of medical and pharmacy students for over three decades and a frequent author and editor of textbooks, such as "Goodman & Gilman's Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics," Dr. Taylor and faculty at UCSD established a pharmacogenomics course four years ago for Pharm.D., M.D., and Ph.D. students at UCSD. He will support the faculty members' endeavors to develop the education program and evaluate the content of the education program.